


Matchstick Psalms

by ThoseWitches



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, Post-Series Castiel, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Pre-Slash, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 23:38:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16901961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoseWitches/pseuds/ThoseWitches
Summary: Death takes a pull from the bottle of Old Crow Reserve.The drink protests the indignity of being swallowed and claws an ugly taste all the way down until it hits the bottom and warms. Death chases the burn with another dram.  It's pointless. Pure theatric on Death's part; the waters of Lethe couldn't muddle Death's omniscience and this, Death sips again, was not bottled from any fabled spring. It filled out the motif of this dire hour however and Death’s waited out the end of worlds in less aesthetic ways.As an afterthought Death tops off Dean's glass.





	Matchstick Psalms

**Author's Note:**

> Hey shining soul that shopped by date published. *Finger guns*

Death takes a pull from the bottle of Old Crow Reserve.

The drink protests the indignity of being swallowed and claws an ugly taste all the way down until it hits the bottom and warms. Death chases the burn with another dram. It's pointless. Pure theatric on Death's part; the waters of Lethe couldn't muddle Death's omniscience and this, Death sips again, was not bottled from any fabled spring. It filled out the motif of this dire hour however and Death’s waited out the end of worlds in less aesthetic ways.

As an afterthought Death tops off Dean's glass.

Dean with a tightly wound quality of silence, alternately shares his gaze between the pouring bourbon and the ring he's fidgeting around a finger. He refuses to look directly at the presence filling the adjacent bar stool and it is a petty satisfaction that this Dean cannot shake his round-eyed fear of Death either. Initially at least Death never fails to awe the irreverent little meatstick.

Any latent repercussions from the Death's backwash do not occur to the hunter. He inhales the drink once the bottle moves out of striking range.

Creation, Death decided long ago, was a stupid thing. Base, greedy, careless. Death's antithesis is vacant of any purpose other than to obdurately just be. Half-lives of hard metal isotopes could be thrown sideways into the void of wasted eternity Death spent staring at Creation's first bland, arbitrary endeavors. It was a kindness when Death finally unfolded from the still and dark tangles of the distant cosmos and snuffed out the hollow blunders. Creation, everyone conveniently forgot, was also the mother of abomination.

It was Death who looked at those prototypic smears of life and felt a pull of possibility, and it was Death's crude tools that arduously poked and prodded and pruned Creation's issue into shapes fit to house souls, songs, and poetry. Things that, had Creation been assed, could have been innate to the original design.

And it was now Death loitering in a bar, vainly trying to tape the broken lid of the petri dish back together, when Creation was doing fuckall, absent and elsewhere.

Something of the timbre of Death's thoughts escape.

Shit, Death thinks. Too late to catch it completely. The electric lights gutter to dimness, then the interior of the bar (and most of the south central power grid) goes dark. Death worries a hand at a temple under the cover of the inky gloom, and then pulls the strayed influence in tighter.

With soft staggered ticks the lights return. By the renewed fluorescence Dean's countenance is starker, his eyes dart around the room with a brighter fervor. He could be thrown by the power interruption that just scrammed nuclear reactors from New Orleans to Chicago but a better bet is the lack of reaction from the rest of the bar. A house packed with drunks, and not one shriek when they were plunged in darkness, nor a cheer when they were delivered.

Death snorts as a fresh horror dawns over Dean's face. His delusion that Death was the only monster in the establishment dies and the desperate static filling the vacuum is nearly audible. He forgets not to look at the presence filling the adjacent bar stool in the eye.

Death gives him a tight, mean smile.

A side of Dean's face twitches and flops as he tries to return it. Heaven knows why. He jerks the rest of his bourbon down his throat, squares his shoulders, nods to himself or suffers a spastic tick, and drops the glass to the bar with a ring like a gavel.

“Sit.” Death says.

Before Dean can act on whichever flavor of reckless Hail Mary suicide he's chosen, the strings holding up his temporary posture of bravado snap, and he slumps over the bar again. It is depressing, the eons of evolution Death coerced to get even this far.

“They're ghedes, mostly. Ancestral spirits of the dead. This establishment is a, local haunt.” Death offers this to mollify some of Dean's panic before he starts slashing through the Friday night crowd. Ghede defy a moral classification. They exist in the murky territory of faith and devotion, where hunters tend not to stray unbidden.

The bar is packed tonight. Like birds before a storm the ghedes must feel the dizziness of the world sliding off the rails like Death can. They’re congregating here not to tremble or fear, but for a last good time.

“That little wrinkle in the grand order I told you about earlier?” Death waits for another affirmative head twitch from Dean, then continues “It and I need to have a little chat. Your role this evening is bait. Sit very still, cause no scenes, and I'll set you loose on Louisiana when it's over.” It might not even be a lie.

Dean's features harden. Death watches this Dean tap into the cosmic fountain of the bullheadedness that defined their other encounters. A protest rushes to the tip of his tongue. Death makes a zip-it gesture before it can escape.

Death told Dean two things when they first sat down. That the events of tonight had ecumenical consequence, and not to ask any stupid questions.

“It’s no one you've ever met.” Death says, before the question explodes out of Dean despite warnings. “You'll know when it gets here.” When Death says 'it' Dean's face goes blank again. “It likes you.” Death says to be mean. The boy's face goes a bit green.

Death smiles with teeth again, and replenishes Dean's glass.

They wait.

 

xx  
No animal, vegetable or mineral has ever stood Death up before.

Death taps the rim of the bottle against a tooth. Dean flinches at the sound. Death tilts the bourbon his way and raises an eyebrow. Shakily Dean waves off the offer with a delightful mockery of nonchalance. Death shrugs and drinks deeply.

Late. Late. Late.

Unfulfilled expectation metabolizes into something with an edge of wildness. Death has a growing desire to bounce a leg on the bar stool. The fluorescent bulbs above constantly waver, but hold. Death knocks back another bolt of bourbon. Dean focuses on his empty glass, adrift again.

A foot away the bartender lines up shot glasses and upturns a bottle of top shelf carelessly between them. Liquor runs down the slope of the bar and despite himself Dean drags a finger through the puddle and licks it clean. He stops, confusion at the impulse apparent.

Around them dancing is getting dirtier. More spirits still pouring in. It is a tight packed now -except for Death’s bar, which is given respect and generous space.

Someone turns off the music and a table of card players step away from a game. Instruments are pulled out from under the bar's tiny stage. They blow dust from trombones and trumpets, suck on the reeds to saxophones and pluck guitars in tune. A shelf by the stage looks more like a little spinet piano when stacks of bath tissue and a box of urinal cakes are thrown to the side. A woman ducks under the top with a tool box like it's the hood of a car and in a moment it sounds like a piano too.

Dean notices the hand from the finger he licked has crept up his neck and combed into his own hair enticingly. He holds it before him. Staring at it hard like it will confess the betrayal. A trumpet cuts through the noise of the room and startles him. The solo is unapologetically syrup and sex and brass. Other players fall in as they finish tuning up.

“Uh.” He doesn't ask, but his voice rides up. A flush rises across his cheeks. The room takes turns improving bawdy lyrics as accompaniment, together shouting a chorus.

“Ghede can be affecting.” Death admits as a woman on stage reaches under her skirt and enjoys herself against the piano. Dean swears and covers his eyes.

The room begins to spiral as the spirits try out drink each other and commit increasingly louder and lascivious antics. The more lewd the less convincingly the dead pantomime eroticism. They grow more gaunt and ashen, and dance jerkily against corpse stiffened limbs. The parody doesn't put them off, they shimmy, thrust and laugh. The music does not falter.

Death ordered fries from the grill but the cook brings out heaps of crawfish. For Death she also lays out a cloth napkin and a bowl of lemon wedges. She backs away with her head dipped low.

Behind the bar she is less genial. Barking Order up! over the noise and slamming her palm down on a little bell. She slides forward plates of what's looking less and less like bar fare: beans, medium-rare steaks, ice cream, ambrosia salad, french toast. The dead pounce on the dishes as they appear, hoist them high over their heads and squeeze back into the press of bodies.

Any rational creature would be terrified as the words of the Great Plan shrivel up and peel off the pages. That even Death can't see far enough down the line to avoid something as droll as padding for an appointment should be a stark indicator of the vulnerable state of things. But fear is for the living, so the ghede eke out their pleasure while it still can be had.

This spiraling could be fixed. With some elbow room destiny reasserts itself, and Death is most assuredly in the business of making room.

This could stop, everything could. No burden of picking and choosing, no hemming and hawing over which cut is the best physic. Eliminate all the variables and leave a smoking crater. How simple things could be if everything was silent. Death could quit trying to be clever. Or sentimental.

Something changes. The players don’t stop, but the song is harder to hear. Light feels cheap and gimmicky. A bad paint job chipping off the contours of the universe. What a kitsch prize this all was. And it wasn’t as if Creation wouldn’t start filling the void of this world the instant it was thrown away.

Beside Death Dean is frozen. His flush bled away. There's white all the way around his irises this time. Trembling, he tugs away the remainder of the Old Crow Reserve and drains it.

Death breathes in- like the drinking it's all theater, and holds the air for twelve beats of Dean's rabbit heart. It's not calming, not really. So instead of counterfeiting an exhale, Death reaches over the mound of crustacean and picks the largest crawfish. Deft fingers twist it apart. Dean watches with open disgust as Death sucks the juice from its head. He does not say anything which Death accepts for the hard won victory of self-censorship that it is.

The bartender trades their empty for a bottle of Rebel Yell. The sweet crawfish meat that touches Death's tongue is spicy, but not overpowering. It's out of season although still very good. Death peels the shell from the meat of the tail of another.

“Try one.” Death tells Dean.

He doesn't defer, which Death thinks shows some judgment. Or inebriation. He wedges out the smallest from the pile and holds it loosely by the end. Cautious as thought it might spring back to life at any moment. Death could assure him like almost everyone else at this party, it's dead as a doornail. Dean gingerly copies Death's motions except sucking on the head. He swallows like it's medicine.

“Not like chicken.” He shouts over the ramble.

Death shrugs and plucks the next biggest crawfish from the mound. Simultaneously the door opens, and the angel arrives. Late.

The hole in the wall bar wails filthy jazz and covers of Ginuwine. A sex act that maybe still be illegal on the books in Louisiana is happening against the pool table. The ex-angel slips in and a whisper of outside air comes with him. The breath of the balmy Louisiana night slides over the mad fever in the room like an ice cube. It gutters the candles on the tables low and runs a shiver through the patrons. Not completely unwanted, some revelers chase the feeling dipping their fingers into their glass and pulling out dripping ice to glide over the smooth skin of their wrists and necks.

In typical fashion, the angel is unaware of the ripple he's caused.

Death could kill them both right now. The angel was the sticky wicket. Popped so far out of his time and place even now Death has to squint to see him. End them both in ways to put them beyond the reach of Judgement, Heaven and Hell. It would go a long way to restore the balance.

Death thinks this, as Dean tries to surreptitiously palm a second crawfish. It makes the decision surprisingly easy. Death cleans up and pushes away from the table. A wave of a hand keeps Dean seated.

“Tell your proverbial cockroach of a savior, he was not the only thing that came back through the eye of the needle.” Death says. “Things are exactly as dire as he believes. You have until the new moon.” Death considers. “Probably.”

Dean's head swivels. Death waits again, just for the moment it takes for Dean to notice the ex-angel marching towards him. This Dean wouldn't know Castiel from Adam, but his first look leaves him thunderstruck.

With his lather up, Castiel is angel enough to charge the air with bitter char and ozone. He locks on Dean with such grim intensity, the boy's jaw drops and he leans back in his seat. The years roughened him, stripped him bare but his blue eyes burn inhuman.

“Tell Him.” Death says again. The weight of the repetition forces the ghede’s music to stutter, the walls to groan, and tides to drop.

The angel closes the room and looks wild and Death still can’t see him exactly. Not like Death can the older things drifting towards wakefulness by the thrum of discord. Those dozily lumbering from the dim shades of memory, licking chops as they shake off sleep. Soon again, there will be more monsters than shadows. And this cracked vessel was not one Death could place hope in.

Castiel shoves his way to the table, and Dean's flush creeps back. He ignores Death and stumbles off his stool. Death catches him by the scruff before he face plants on the bar. It's ridiculous that Creation gets the songs and adoration. When Death's the one that plays favorites.

Death pushes Dean into Castiel’s path and its unknowable wake.

"Fix this" Death tells them both. "Or I will" and leaves.


End file.
